Naked City

Andy Taylor, attorney for the state in the redistricting trial

The Texas re-redistricting battle went to the judges last week, following closing arguments held in Austin Dec. 23. Presiding Judge Patrick Higginbotham told the attorneys to expect a decision from the three-judge federal panel this week.

"This is a landmark case," Gerald Hebert, attorney for the Democratic congressional intervenors, told the court. "It's not about Democrats and Republicans." Hebert noted the opposing legal teams -- an integrated group on the plaintiffs' side and an all-white team of attorneys defending the state of Texas -- and continued, "Look at this courtroom. The Voting Rights Act is the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, and it is being upheld here by a coalition of whites, blacks, and Hispanics. We urge you to protect it." Rolando Rios, representing the League of United Latin American Citizens, told the judges bluntly, "Don't tell us to go to the Legislature for help, because the state of Texas has never done anything for minorities that it wasn't forced to do by the federal government."

When his turn finally came, state attorney Andy Taylor responded that the answer to the plaintiffs' claims about voting rights is simple: "Politics, politics, politics, politics."

Most of the morning's arguments were devoted to details of the map adopted (finally) in October by the Legislature -- which had abruptly become the de facto Texas congressional map the previous Friday, when it was precleared of any objections under the VRA by the U.S. Department of Justice. The judges asked pointed questions about the evidence presented at trial as well as the legal grounds on which both sides were asking the judges to rule. Judges Higginbotham and Lee Rosenthal seemed skeptical of the plaintiffs' argument that the current Dallas/Fort Worth District 24, with 22% African-American voters and represented by Democratic Rep. Martin Frost, deserves protection as a "minority opportunity district" under the VRA. But when the focus shifted to South Texas, they appeared equally unconvinced of Taylor's defense of the new map's flat exchange of Hispanic-opportunity District 23 (Republicanized to protect incumbent Rep. Henry Bonilla) for the manufactured Hispanic District 25, stretching from the Rio Grande to Koenig Lane.

At one point, Judge T. John Ward challenged the plaintiffs to cite specific legal precedent to support their contention that the systematic elimination of (majority-Anglo) districts that are strongly influenced by minority voters violates the law. The lawyers pointed to last year's Supreme Court decision in Georgia v. Ashcroft -- which acknowledged for the first time that districts with significant "minority influence" merit some degree of protection. But the plaintiffs also took the broader position that the new Texas map is an unprecedented, and therefore unlitigated, attempt to roll back minority voting influence across an entire Southern state.

In general, Taylor relied on specific and distinct mapping details to argue that every district in the map pursues a partisan Republican end without violating voting rights; the plaintiffs, representing Democratic officeholders, voters, and the major Texas minority advocacy groups, argued that "the totality of the circumstances" and the map as a whole effectively disenfranchise black and Hispanic voters all across the state. The judges' decision may depend upon whether they look at each district in isolation, or instead determine that the map as a whole overreaches the Republican desire for a partisan majority (legal under the VRA) and violates minority voting rights.

Morris Overstreet, speaking for the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, asked the court not to judge the plan by what the state has said in its defense, but by what the plan does. He compared it to the con game known as the "pigeon drop": "You think you're getting something, but you're really not, and at the end of the day, something bad happens to you." Luis Vera, general counsel for LULAC, concluded the day's arguments with an emotional appeal on behalf of minority Texans. "This map has cut the minority communities so badly," he said, "no one can justify it. This map will be judged by history: Will there be a political solution, or will there be justice?"